RCS: The new reign of business messaging

Over three decades ago, a 22-year old engineer working for a global telecoms company sent the first text message in history, wishing his colleague a "Merry Christmas”.

From that moment on, SMS has been the leading messaging protocol globally. As mobile phones proliferated, SMS, with their broad reach and reliability, has endured.

But there’s been a shift. Accelerated by Apple’s adoption in 2024, Rich Communications Services, or RCS, is a new standard which elevates mobile messaging.

Whilst SMS is limited to text-only communications, RCS is specifically designed to provide rich, interactive messaging experiences that have become popularized on channels like iMessage, WhatsApp, Viber and other “over the top” channels.

With RCS, you can add an emoji to your note, “like,” “dislike,” or “laugh” at a received message, and most importantly, make sure your GIF animates.

As RCS reaches critical mass in our digital-native world, brands and digital marketing teams have already taken note, and use cases for the channel are reaching maturity.

Across retail, hospitality, travel, finance and other major industries, strategies are being implemented to leverage the interactive features of RCS for campaigns that increase customer loyalty, ensure brand trust and ultimately boost engagement metrics to break benchmarks.

The inflection point: Why RCS adoption is accelerating now

RCS is projected to grow to ~3.8B users by the end of 2026, so it's critical to know its features and understand how it differs from SMS. Going far beyond high-resolution media to attract consumer attention, key RCS differentiators include:

• Read receipts and typing indicators that help support active engagement.
• End-to-end encryption of messaging between users, that addresses consumers’ heightening concerns around fraudulent mobile activity.
• Carrier vetting and approval of brands that use the channel to engage with their customers, boosts consumer confidence that they are speaking with a verified business.
• Longer character limits and support for images, videos and PDFs, that allow brands to send rich messages to their customers instead of sending multiple, fragmented notes and links.
• In-app features like appointment booking and purchasing that make it easier for consumers to complete their journey in one place.

As RCS becomes more commonplace, brands are leveraging the protocol to deploy omnichannel communication campaigns that elevate customer engagement and provide measurable feedback.

How to deploy RCS

Where SMS is limited to plain text and clunky links, RCS provides an app-like experience without the need for any download, making campaigns more engaging, measurable, and personalized.

With RCS, retailers are reminding shoppers what they left in their cart and letting them complete the purchase right from their phone’s default messaging app, while airlines are sending travelers flight updates, interactive airport maps and event their boarding passes, to ensure travelers have a smooth experience.

To deploy an RCS campaign, you must ensure you meet all compliance and approval requirements for carrier approval.

Then, you’ll want to identify an ideal, impactful scenario that could benefit from rich media and two-way communication, like order confirmations, cart abandonment reminders, appointment scheduling, or personalized promotions.

Medical offices, for example, can leverage RCS messages that integrate directly with Google Calendars, ensuring doctors and patients avoid the wasted time and cost associated with missing appointments.

RCS requires a verified sender status, authenticating the brand to avoid messages being marked as spam. Display logos, company info, and contact details can also be included to boost brand recognition and ensure customer confidence.

Most impactfully, campaign performance can be analyzed in real time to track delivery status, read receipts, clicks, swipes, and more. From there, audiences can be segmented based on engagement to trigger personalized follow-ups or retargeted campaigns.

Conclusion

SMS has long been the default channel for mobile marketing, but RCS, with its app-like experiences, is becoming a crucial channel of the omnichannel mix.

Research by Omdia predicts RCS traffic will quadruple from 1.5 trillion messages in 2024 to more than 6 trillion messages in 2029. As a result, A2P (Application-to-person) RCS will generate revenues of $4.2 billion by the last year of the decade.

SMS, due to its reliability and broad accessibility, will remain an important channel in the overall communication strategy, but as RCS proliferates, expect it to eat more and more of the overall share.

Today's digitally native audiences want brands to communicate with them in a way that’s personal and natural, similar to how they’d text a friend or family member.

For brands, the ability of RCS to deliver richer, more interactive communication, is translating into deeper customer trust, long-term loyalty, and giving them a reputation as a brand people love doing business with.

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